old dog sleeping

Front and back views of an elderly sleeping dog. He’s our baby.

#paco

where to go?

Still deciding where to go with G+ closing next year. I was a long-term fan of the My Opera Community. It closed years ago, so I primarily went to Google Plus. Now it’s going away. Facebook makes me too sad. I recently deleted all my posts and just sometimes lurk now.

Wharrr to go?

– MeWe
– VK
– Twitter
– WordPress

Some combination, maybe.

eating in the places that are not so popular

Brian and I usually won’t go to the popular restaurants in town, mostly for the reason that we don’t like to wait long and get uncomfortable in a packed house.

A new place opens and becomes the rage, or some place makes a “best of” list, Hops Burger Bar on Lawndale in Greensboro, for example. We see the crowds packing the sidewalk for months, sometimes for over a year. I have little interest in getting into that scene.

We prefer the places that are not very popular anymore, that are like faded flowers, maybe. A few are borderline dumps. As long as the sanitation grade is good and seems believable, that’s where we like to go.

This article made me think of this post:

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/portland/stanichs-closed-will-it-reopen-burger-quest

that foreign meddlin’

Things jump out at me in ordinary reading, like this: Facebook’s advertising system is exploited by foreign governments and other malevolent political actors who have had free rein to spread disinformation and discord

Yes, technically true, but it’s really “that Russia shit” dressed up another way. It’s only those “foreign” governments, not ours. It has become too big to fail.

https://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-tyranny-of-structurelessness/

la campana del taco

A pleasant lunch with Brian at Taco Bell. 🌮 🔔

“I think you’re pretty”

#tacobell #altacocina

the fragile state of alternative social media

Tedious social media thought dump 💩 :

I’ve always been most fond of offbeat social media. I prefer the networks that are NOT fist pick, and I don’t mind being alone on them. I post like I don’t care if any anybody ever reads them, and I really don’t care. While interactions are nice (and desirable), posting with a focus on getting attention goes bad quickly without a big dose of restraint. I just prefer to post what I’m thinking, even if it’s tedious and boring. My quantity of goof posts annoys people sometimes. It’s up to the recipient to control that. Posters can be unfollowed or muted, for example. I’ve had many unfriend me. Excessive, but that’s their business. I’ve done it, too.

The popular social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are where the people are, so I do them. Except for the reward of seeing friends, my happiness level is low. The filtration, coercion, and data mining induce stress.

I started out blogging on the My Opera Community in 2003. It was great for years, then Opera Software shut it down. Most people then migrated to WordPress, as did I, but I’ve never been much of a fan. I still maintain a WordPress archive of My Opera.

I was most fond of Google Plus (Google+, G+). Slick, so easy on mobile, great communities. Now Google is going to shut it down in 2019.

I tried the Mastodon federated social network. It’s the best thing I’ve seen so far, but after getting booted from three hosting instances in three weeks due to owners changing their minds, I’m not doing federated anymore. Riding along on somebody else’s hosting leaves one vulnerable to constant tedious resets.

I also do VK (VKontakte). Russian Facebook-like experience. Quite good, actually. I have no apologies. English is popular and people are from all over the world.

MeWe is supposed to be a rising star. I’m trying it. I don’t know. It might not work out. I like it, but I don’t. 🤨

I’ve never felt so adrift and limited on alternative social media. It’s a bad time to be dependent on big corporate social media. I’d especially like to cast off Facebook, but I don’t see doing it right away.

#facebook #vk #mewe #twitter #mastodon #googleplus #wordpress #myopera #socialmedia

hell-o-ween

Getting ready for Halloween. 🎃 👻 🧛‍♂️

#halloween

squeeze me

Mama’s got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night 🎶

ads and “prop”

I enjoy dissecting and paying attention to advertising to see if I can spot the manipulation involved, also to see if there is a surprise or special creativity to it, and finally just to ridicule it sometimes.
 
Mitsubishi has one on that I can make fun of.
 
Ad: “Don’t you want to test drive a Mitsubishi?”
Me: “Not at all.”
 
At least Mitsubishi doesn’t equate buying a car with love as most of the Subaru ads do.
 
The two most annoying ads for me right now are Anoro with that whiny Fleetwood Mac “Go Your Own Way” song, and Operation Smile “This Little Light of Mine” for being so cloyingly emotional.
 
Both Anoro and Operation Smile use sound processing that plays hell with 5.1 surround sound by making the ad swirl around the listener and even appear to come from another room, like some kind of voice throwing. It seems to be purposely disorienting to make an impression.
 
For me, analyzing advertising goes hand in hand with analyzing propaganda in the news.

dogs!

We have four dogs, plus we keep a friend’s dog off and on, so there will sometimes be five in the house.

It makes me become a hypochondriac with the veterinarian, sometimes. I’ll rush to the vet with every little thing.

Sometimes I think that the doctor has played me. As he hands me a bottle of placebos, “give her these until you both feel better.”